Invisible Tools

Having your tools become second-nature has more effect on your productivity than getting the right tools. Once they reach that status I like to call them "invisible tools".

I've found the best way of having a tool become invisible is a combination of:

• Very few moving parts
• Building muscle memory to use it
• Stability: it doesn't fail, it doesn't change, or changes very slowly over time.

In the following posts I talk about hardware and software tools, but this applies to everything that can be considered a tool: the pen and notebook pair I carry everywhere is an invisible tool. My phone camera also is invisible. I don't need to think about them, I just use them.

The arrangement of the tools and their controls are also part of their invisibility. In my case, my phone is always in my left-hand pocket, my keys in the right-hand pocket, and my wallet in my right back one. The icons in my phone rarely change positions. My keyring has only the keys I need to lock/unlock the house, no inside door keys.

When you drive your car, you don't think about turning the engine on, steering, braking or accelerating. You just do. It's the same for all tools. We should aspire to get to that level of familiarity with them, so we can put our brain power into creating instead of spending part of it in thinking how to do simple things.

Here's my first category of invisible tools. I will be adding links to this list as I publish more. If you're interested in this subject, this is the page to bookmark.

Please note that I've been using Apple computers exclusively for the last 20 years, so my experience is heavily biased toward macOS and the Apple ecosystem.

1. Invisible Tools: Keyboard Shortcuts